Sam Smith covered Washington under nine presidents, edited the Progressive Review for over 50 years, wrote four books, helped to start six organizations including the national Green Party, the DC Humanities Council and the DC Statehood Party, and played in jazz bands for four decades

The new secessionists: The GOP secedes from history and progress instead of the union

Sam Smith – The current Republican Party is the most reactionary and destructive major political organization in American history since the secession by the South. In fact, a major portion of its power comes from the South. For example, almost 60% of Romney’s electoral votes came from states that seceded from the US. Harpers Magazine has reported that 23% of Republicans believe their state should secede, that number bouncing to 37% for Mississippi Republicans.

We tend to underrate the remarkable strength of the segment of the country that supposedly lost the Civil War. Beyond slavery and separation, however it is still not always clear who really won. Many of the South’s politicians simply moved from secession to retrogression.

If this seems exaggerated consider some of the current GOP efforts, led in no small part by its southern members. In this list we begin with the number of years that the law the GOP is attempting to unravel has been in effect:240 years; Post Office – The Republicans have repeatedly attacked the nation’s postal service